Pie floater

Pie Floater

Type	Street food
Place of origin	Australia
Main ingredients	Australian meat pie, pea soup
Cookbook: Pie Floater  Media: Pie Floater

The pie floater is an Australian dish particularly common in Adelaide and, to a lesser degree, Sydney. It commonly consists of a traditional Australian-style meat pie, usually sitting, but sometimes submerged (sometimes upside down) in a bowl of thick pea soup made from Blue boiler peas .^[1] It is usually garnished with tomato sauce,^[2] and the consumer may also add mint sauce, salt, pepper and/or malt vinegar to personal preference. The pie floater is usually purchased in the street from pie-carts as a late evening meal.^[3]

Anthony Bourdain, Joe Cocker, Billy Connolly, Nigel Mansell, Shane Warne and Angus Young are high profile fans of the pie floater.^[4]

In 2003, the pie floater was recognized as a South Australian Heritage Icon by the National Trust of Australia,^[5] but now available at a very few locations, one being the Café de Vilis.

Pie Carts

Pie Floaters were typically purchased in the street from pie-carts, as a late evening meal. Pie-carts are typically a form of caravan/trailer/cart, (originally horse-drawn), with an elongated "window" along one or both sides where customers sit or (more usually) stand to eat their purchases. The pie-cart was typically moved into position at lunch time and in the evening. As traffic became busier and on-street car-parking in demand, the carts evolved to have one window on "the footpath side", and were moved into position after afternoon peak-hour traffic had ebbed. They do business until late-evening or early-morning, after which they were returned to their daytime storage locations.

South Australia has had pie carts in the Adelaide metropolitan area since the 1870s. In the evenings, the Norwood pie-cart was located on The Parade adjacent to the Norwood Town Hall. It was also the only place where members of the public could buy draft Hall's "Stonie" ginger beer directly from the keg.

In 2003, The South Australian National Trust traced the history of the pie floater: an impressive history tracing back 130+ years.

Pea soup with meat has long been part of English culinary history, with mentions in the 19th century, including Yorkshire "pea and pie supper", "pea soup with eel", "suet dumplings or saveloys", (Dumplings in soup were known as "Floaters"). It may have developed from those dishes, which are useful for feeding groups of people on a budget: for example at a sports match or at harvest time. ^[6]

In the Adelaide city centre in the 1880s, there were 13 pie-carts operating in King William Street and North Terrace. By 1915 there were nine pie-carts in operation. By 1958 this had reduced to two: Balfour's pie-cart on North Terrace outside the Adelaide railway station, and Cowley's in Victoria Square outside the G.P.O. When, in 2007, the Glenelg Tramline was extended from Victoria Square along King William Street and North Terrace past the Adelaide Railway Station, the Balfour's pie-cart was forced to close.^[7]

A well known version of the pie floater in Sydney is sold from Harry's Cafe de Wheels pie cart situated in Woolloomooloo, New South Wales. Harry's Cafe de Wheels is listed on the National Trust Register as an historic icon.^[8] Originally set near the graving docks (now Australian Naval Dockyards known as 'Garden Island Naval Base' Woolloomooloo), east of the Sydney Opera House, the current Cafe de Wheels has been permanently fixed on a masonry base for some years. Other Harry's Cafe de Wheels operate in the Sydney city and metropolitan area, and in the city of Newcastle, New South Wales.

See also

• List of legume dishes

References

External links

• Excerpts from Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia (including a description of a pie floater)
• Pie Floater article (includes a photo of the South Australian version of the pie floater)